


I'll wait forever (that's what we said)

by toastweasel



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, a place for all the oneshots I'll inevitable write for these two, content warnings will be on each fic as they are needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26256376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastweasel/pseuds/toastweasel
Summary: A collection of Kyalin oneshots. AU's included as I see fit. Unbeta'd, but I'll do my best. Includes Kyalin Week 2020!
Relationships: Lin Beifong/Kya II
Comments: 76
Kudos: 219





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A place for all the Kyalin oneshots I'll undoubtedly write while the muses are still strong.
> 
> Content Warnings will be on an as-needed, chapter by chapter basis.
> 
> Title from I'll Wait by Kygo.

Lin Beifong knows her city inside and out, but there are very few places she feels comfortable enough in to stay.

Not because she feels unsafe. Most people know to give her distance or get what is coming to them. Being Republic City’s Police Chief has some perks, but it also has its downsides.

Like the reporters who trail her every move. Like the gossip columnists who attempt to piece together her (non-existent) love life in the papers. Like the paparazzi dispatched by both, vulture-rats with flashbulbs that try to discredit her every action.

It’s infuriating.

As the daughter of Toph Beifong, she’d learned to live with it.

As the Chief of Police, she’s grown to hate it.

There is one space in Republic City she can escape to, when the paperwork gets to be too much or Tenzin is getting on her nerves or she can’t stand the emptiness of her apartment any long.

It’s a place where the staff doesn’t ask any questions, and the other cilently leave her alone.

So she goes, frequently.

“Good afternoon,” says the woman behind the counter, ChunHua, as Lin slips in the back door of Wan Shi Tong’s Spirit Café. “Your usual?”

Lin nods and approaches the counter.

“Hot or cold?”

“Hot, please.”

Lin watches her carefully scoop tea leaves and ginger into a diffuser, then pop it in hot water while she readies the coffee and cream. The metalbender pulls out a bill from her wallet and puts it on the counter, and observes the rest of the store while she waits.

The downstairs café is emptier than usual, with only a few patrons and the odd couple scattering the low tops in the big open space in front of the bar-like coffee set up. The shaft skylight that pierces the central staircase lets in light from the third and second floors, and small hanging lights make up the difference. It’s quiet today, without the usual hubbub of Saturday afternoon activity.

“No club meeting today?” Lin asks carefully of ChunHua, uncomfortable with the disturbance in one of her most sacred of spaces.

“No, the facilitator is sick,” ChunHua replies over the counter with a sad little smile. “Had to cancel.”

That would explain it. “Ah.”

“They’ll be back next week.” ChunHua carefully pours the infusion of tea and coffee together into a cup and carefully adds the frothed foam to the drink. Once satisfied with the drink’s appearance, she passesit over to Lin. “Here’s your yuenyeung with extra ginger. Is that it?”

“Mmm.”

ChunHua nods and moves to ring her up. She takes up the bill Lin had put on the counter and punches the amount into the till. “Out of a ten,” she says, then adds, “your usual reading fee?”

“Yes.”

“Your total is seven-fifty.” The barista quickly counts out her change and passes it over to her. Lin pockets it with murmured thanks, then climbs the stairs to the bookstore above, carefully balancing her cup. The attendee behind the checkout counter on the second floor waves in friendly greeting, then goes back to their work as she bypasses directly to the third floor.

There’s nobody up here, which is exactly how Lin likes it. She finds her favorite corner nook, behind a veritable fortress of bookshelves to keep her privacy, and settles her drink on a side table after taking a sip. Then goes off into the stacks in search of an interesting book. She finds one, a book on Old Kingdom architecture, and takes it off to her corner, where she curls up in the chair with the book to read.

The sun comes in through the window a few bookcases down, the marks the light makes on the floor slowly shifts as the day lengthens throughout her stay. She doesn’t move, only sip her drink and flips the pages, buoyed by the ambient noise drifting up through the atrium. The chatter of book groups and the grind of the coffee all provide welcome background noise, and is much preferable to the frantic ringing of telephones and frantic conversations of detectives and beat cops at the station.

The entire four hour she’s there, nobody bothers her. While footsteps clatter up the stairs to the third floor, nobody finds her certain corner nook, and for that she is grateful.

That is, until a familiar voice asks,

“Lin?”

She glances up, and is shocked to see Kya standing before her. Her old friend is dressed casually, her silver hair back in a bun and her hand-dyed wrap skirt twisted in intricate, beautiful layers around her waist. She’s got more than her usual array of necklaces slung low in the scoop neck of her shirt, and there is a small selection of books already tucked under her arm.

“Kya!” Lin exclaims, startled, and closes her book instinctively. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” the waterbender replies, amusement in her voice.

“I’m reading.”

“I can see that.”

Lin gets defensive. “Nobody ever comes back here.”

“Well, nobody except me,” Kya tells her wryly, “and you, apparently. You’re sitting amongst the healing arts section.”

Of course. She’s an idiot. Lin unfolds herself in her chair and sets her book to the side.

“I didn’t know you came here.”

“I didn’t know _you_ came here,” Kya says, setting a hand on her own hip and cocking it to one side. “You know this is a gay bookstore, right?”

Lin feels her eyebrow twitch. As if she came here for any other reason. “Believe me, I’m well aware.”

Kya blinks. “Oh.” A pause. Lin can see her processing, sees the second the lightbulb clicks. “I see.”

“You’re not the only person who doesn’t broadcast their sexuality,” Lin says, and crosses her legs as she leans back in her chair. “This is the only place I can browse and read in peace.”

“Well then, don’t let me stop you.”

Without any further questions, or teasing (which might be a minor miracle in and of itself), Kya brushes past her and over to the bookshelf she had come for. Lin opens her book again, but can’t focus. She is acutely aware of Kya’s every move; the way her fingers trace the spines of books as she considers them, the gentle hum she makes as she slips a book back, the gentle ‘tsk’ noise she makes when she thinks she finds something but it turns out not to be quite what she had imagined.

Lin eyes the small stack of books in Kya’s arms, and is surprised to see the spines of several smutty romances she herself had read in this very chair only a few weeks ago. She squirms, and tries to focus on architecture. She can’t.

Finally, Kya finds whatever she is looking for. She pulls it off the shelf with a contently little noise and, satisfied with its contents, adds it to her pile.

“Well, that’s me sorted,” the waterbender says conversationally. “Enjoy your book, Lin.”

She moves off down the stacks, presumably to go downstairs and check out, but Lin stops her.

“Kya, wait.”

Kya turns and looks back at Lin expectedly.

“You won’t…tell anyone, right?” Lin asks hesitantly. “That I come here?”

Kya’s stance softens, and she smiles softly at her. “Of course not, Lin. Your secret’s safe with me.”


	2. Tumblr Prompts 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Collection of unbeta's oneshots/shorts/drabbles written from Tumblr prompts. :)

_Anon: Kyalin prompt- there’s just something about waking up next to her..._

There’s something about waking up next to her, Lin thinks, as she watches the sun come through the blinds and kiss her sleeping partner’s brown skin.

There’s something about the way her hair lays on the pillows, two silver braids that Lin always rolls over onto somehow by accident, but still gleam in the early morning light.

There’s something about the way she sleeps naked, and how her body seems to reject the sheets so she always starts the morning half-tangled in them.

There’s something about the way her arm always finds Lin’s middle and keeps her from straying too far in the night.

And there’s something about the way her eyes flutter open sleepily, the way her crows feet and laugh lines crinkle and she smiles, and in the way she kisses Lin good morning.

* * *

_Anon: Lin in the shower when Kya gets home and starts playing around with bending the water on her wife's body 👀_

Lin hears her wife come home just as she steps in the shower and doesn’t think much of it. Kya is a big girl, she can handle herself for the five minutes Lin will be in the shower.

Kya raps on the door and peeks in. “Can I join you?”

Lin glances at her through the curtain and gives a little shrug. “If you’d like.”

She wets her hair as Kya strips of her clothes, enjoying the feeling of the warm water on her sore muscles. She’d assisted at the academy early today, and now her muscles are screaming. She is getting too old for this shit.

She’s busy stretching out her neck and shoulders when Kya steps into the shower at the other end of the tub. She smiles at catching Lin mid-stretch and asks, “Cadets kick your ass today?”

Lin scowls and says nothing.

“Oh come here, you baby,” Kya scolds fondly, and bends water from the head and wraps it around Lin’s back and torso. Lin squirms at the odd sensation, like she’s swimming from the waist up, but then the water starts to glow and after a few seconds the aching abates.

“Better?” Kya asks.

Lin rotates her shoulders through their motions, and doesn’t feel the pain that had plagued her all afternoon. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Good,” her wife says, and draws her in for a kiss. The water she’s bending drops lower, and suddenly Lin feels a whole _new,_ much more pleasurable, kind of ache.

* * *

_Anon asked: Lin saving Kya when they were kids (which I flipped)_

Lin didn’t remember drowning. She remembered going under, she remembered swimming towards the light, and then she remembered an arm around her muddle that cause her to choke.

She woke up on the beach, back flat against the sand, with Tenzin’s older sister kneeling above her. Her hair was down and soaked with water, and she was glaring at someone.

“I thought you said she could swim!”

“She _can_ ,” she heard Tenzin reply, his voice dangerously to a whine.

Lin chooses that moment to cough. She tastes brackish bay water pickling her tongue and she rolls over as the flavor makes her gag. Kya hurriedly runs a hand up her spine, along her back, and she feels something _grow_ inside her. Her coughing stops abruptly as the thing fills her trachea and windpipe, blocking off oxygen, but then the water slides _up_ her esophagus and Kya bends it out to spatter against a nearby rock.

Lin begins to cough anew, but this time, with a much lighter chest.

“Absolutely last time I babysit you lot,” Kya says with exasperation, one brown hand rubbing up and down Lin’s back soothingly. “You good, Lin?”

She nods, wiping her mouth with her hand.

“Good. Do me a favor and stop trying to drown, okay? If you die, Mom and Aunt Toph will kill _me,_ and I don’t think it’s fair to die if I don’t believe in capital punishment, yeah?”

Tenzin sputters, but Lin smirks.

“Sure thing.”

* * *

_Anonymous asked: Bumi convincing Lin to go out with him and Kya, and then him just leaving so they're on a date._

“Where’s Bumi?” Lin asks as she sees Kya approach, her brother absolutely nowhere in sight.

Kya frowns as she gets close. “Bumi? What about Bumi?”

“He said I’d be meeting both of you for drinks. I assumed he’d be arriving with you.”

‘What?” the waterbender asks in confusion. “He just said that you said you wanted to grab dinner with me before I left for home?”

The dawning realization of the set up hits them at the same time.

“That son of a bitch!”

* * *

_Anonymous asked: Kyalin in Zaofu arguing/talking after Lin went after Suyin; an  
_ _au where Kya tagged along [to Zaofu] to protect korra cuz they know who they're up against._

Lin wakes in her guest quarters in Zaofu, alone accept for the figure in the armchair. She struggles to sit up, and finds the figure to be Kya. She’s slumped against the high back, head lolling in the head rest, arm dangling over the side.

“Spirits alive,” Lin growls out, and rubs a tired hand along the inside of her nose. Could she get not even one minute alone, even in unconsciousness?

Kya starts at the sound of her voice, her eyes blinking open and instantly focusing on the bed, as if to make sure she was actually there. “You’re awake.”

“Are you here to tell me off, too?”

Kya just shakes her head and sit up. “Of course not.”

“Because if you are you can—what?” Lin interrupts herself, words stumbling and falling into each other like dumbfounded trainwreck.

The healer stands and comes over to her bedside. “She still hasn’t apologized for harming you, has she?”

“Of course she hasn’t.”

“And she hasn’t apologized for running away? Or for the position she put you and your mother in?”

Lin raises an eyebrow up at her as if to ask, _what do you think?_

“If that’s the case,” Kya hums, and bends water out of her pouch to spread across Lin’s back and neck, soothing the sore muscles there with a glowing elixir of healing water, “I think your anger is perfectly justifiable.”

* * *

_Anonymous asked: Beach day! Kyalin ❤️_

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll _burn_ ,” Kya scolds, and pulls the shirt over Lin’s pale shoulders.

Her partner scowls behind her sunglasses. “I’m just going to be reading. I don’t need a cover up”

“Reflective light is a bitch,” Kya singsongs in response, “and you hate sunscreen.”

Lin wrinkles her nose, and Kya plants a kiss on her mouth before pulling away.

“Have fun, babe. If you decide you want to actually come in the water, you know where to find us.”

Lin grunts and crosses her heels defiantly, indicating her intention to stay firmly planted under the umbrella in her beach chair, sipping coconut water and reading about Old Kingdom architecture.

Kya rolls her eyes fondly, but lets her be, and turns towards where her family is frolicking in the water.

* * *

_cherrychonk asked: Lin waking Kya up after a tough day at work and just wanting to hig her girlfriend/wife_

Kya was already asleep when Lin came home, the lights off in the apartment save for the kitchen light. It was almost two in the morning and Lin was exhausted, but she shed her armor as quietly as possible in order to keep from waking her wife. She stacked it all by the door, then padded into the kitchen and swiped a pear from the fruit bowl to sate the gnawing hunger in her belly.

She leaned against the counter, took a bite, and didn’t even care as pear juice dribbled from the fruit and down her arm.

Fuck, was she tired.

Lin closed her eyes and though about the scene she had just left. It had been brutal, a triple homicide downtown in a very, _very_ nice apartment building. The kind of building that made hers look paltry. They were dealing with money, and lots of it, but it didn’t look gang related. That little fact which was going to make it harder to solve than easier.

She was almost glad she didn’t have to take cases anymore. She didn’t envy the detective who had this one.

The metalbender filled a water glass from the tap and sipped at as she finished up. Behind her, the door to the bedroom opened and Lin turned and found her wife leaned against the door frame. Kya’s blue eyes were sleepy, her silver hair sleep-tossed and hanging in a long plait over one shoulder.

“You’re home,” she murmured, adjusting her blue silk robe around her.

“I’ll be there in a second.”

Kya must have been tired, because she only nodded and disappeared back to bed.

Lin tipped back the rest of her glass, threw her pear core in the garbage, and washed the sticky trickle of pear juice from her arm. She dried as she walked, throwing the towel to the side as she entered the bedroom.

Kya was already back in bed, sprawled on her stomach on her side of the bed, her robe was hanging on its hook by the door. Lin used her metalbending to flick the lights off in the kitchen, then crawled under the sheets; she had barely settled against her pillow when Kya rolled over and tucked her face into Lin’s chest.

“Crime scene?”

“Mmm.”

“Tell me in the morning,” she mumbled, then wrapped an arm around her wife’s middle and closed her eyes to sleep.

Lin’s lips ticked up slightly. She smoothed a hand over Kya’s hair, inhaling the scene of her winterberry shampoo, then settled in to sleep, too.

Barely even conscious and Kya knew exactly what she needed. Typical.


	3. Kyalin Week 2020 Day 1: College Professors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyalin Week 2020: Day 1 College Professors
> 
> The Krew & Friends make an interesting discovery about their Structures and Architecture Studio professors while de-stressing at the local queer bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Kyalin Week 2020!
> 
> You might notice my interpretations this week are a bit...loose. The joys of an ADHD brain!
> 
> Day 1, College Professors, contains: Coping with my traumatic architecture studio past by making the Krew architecture students, leatherdyke Lin and Kya, Korrasami, Wuko, Bolin/Wing/Wei, genderfluid!Huan, and my aggressive disparaging of brutalism. 
> 
> CW: alcohol consumption, a bar

#  _ Day 1: college professors _

“Oh Spirits,” Asami said beside Korra suddenly, “is that Professor Kya?”

“Where?” Korra immediately asked, popping her head up from the table and looking around wildly.

Asami nodded her head towards the bar and Korra squinted over the crowd towards the woman in question. Sure enough, their architecture studio professor was leaned against the bar, dressed in a leather skirt, a tight blue scoop top, and a motorcycle jacket, chatting with a leatherdyke whose back was to them.

“Holy fuck,” Korra said excitedly, shading her eyes with her hand as if that would help her see better in the dimly lit bar. “It totally is Professor Kya. I didn’t know she was into leather.”

Asami looked around helplessly. It had been weird enough arriving at the queer bar after a long day in studio and discovering it was Leather Night; finding their studio critic there, in leather, was  _ too weird. _

“That’s not Professor Beifong she’s talking to, is it?” Korra asked. “It can’t be. That woman is at least a Zhu Li taller than Professor Beifong.”

Asami rolled her eyes. Ever since the director of the program had made the comment about his assistant at the beginning of the year, Korra and Bolin had run with the joke. The measurement made absolutely no sense, but it provided her girlfriend and her best friend with endless entertainment, which she supposed was the point.

It was now Asami’s turn to squint into the gloomy bar light. The leatherdyke that Professor Kya was talking to  _ could _ have been Professor Beifong, maybe, possibly. The stature was right, but the woman was wearing tight leather pants, a motorcycle vest over a white undershirt, and some sort of cap that hid her hair completely. Asami had never seen Professor Beifong in anything but the crispest black button ups and charcoal slacks and she honestly couldn’t picture her in anything less than that.

“You think it’s her?” Korra asked.

“I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “I’d have to see her face.”

“Well I’m not going over there,” her girlfriend said. “What if it  _ is  _ Beifong? No way. She murdered me in crit on Friday and I haven’t even started studying for her exam on Tuesday.”

Asami rolled her eyes and fussed with the straw of her drink, not taking her eyes off Professor Kya and the woman. She still wasn’t convinced. “Maybe she’s poly?”

“Professor Kya?” Korra mused, noisily sucking at the remains of her drink through her straw. “Possibly. But you think Beifong would let her wife step out with someone like  _ that _ ?”

Asami shrugged. Luckily, someone who could help was approaching their table.

“Bolin,” Asami called out, snagging their friend as he went by with his boyfriends. “Is that Professor Beifong over there by Professor Kya?”

“What? Professor Kya’s here? No way.” Bolin swiveled excitedly between Wing and Wei and peered towards the bar. “Holy frogcats, I didn’t know she was into leather.”

“That’s what I said!”

Bolin reached out a hand for a high five, and Korra leaned over the high top to smack it.

Asami sighed; Bolin was missing the point. “But is that woman talking to her Professor Beifong or not?”

“Professor Beifong? No waaaay. She doesn’t even know what a queer bar is, I bet. All she cares about is brutalism and ruining feelings.” Bolin turned to his dates. “That woman talking to Professor Kya? The water tribe woman by the bar? That’s not your aunt, right?”

All three boys turned to look towards the bar as one. Asami despaired for their stealth techniques.

“Nah,” Wing finally said after a long moment of staring.

“No way,” Wei agreed. “Can’t be her. Aunt Lin would never wear clothes like that.”

Korra was still not convinced. “Mako!”

“What?” Mako separated from the crowd, dragging his boyfriend with him. Wu was leaning heavily onto him, clearly drunk. The happy smile on his face indicated that Wu, at least, was having a good time. “What is it?”

“Professor Kya is here,” Asami said, nodding to the bar before Korra could say something loud that would draw their professor’s attention. “She’s talking to a woman. Beifong is your thesis chair. That her?”

Mako looked over and instantly paled. “That’s definitely her.”

“But that woman is at least a Zhu Li taller than Aunt Lin!” Wing exclaimed before Asami could say anything.

“What did I say?” Korra asked triumphantly just as Mako asked, “What the hell is she doing here wearing  _ leather _ ?”

Wing and Wei shook their heads. One of them—Asami thought it was Wing—departed into the crowd and came back with Huan. Huan was not happy to have been snatched from their crowd of queer friends, although they did look stunning in their lacey dress, high heels, and eyeshadow that matched the dyed streak in their hair. Asami would have to remember to compliment them for the look later.

“Bro, is that leatherdyke at the bar Aunt Lin?” Wei asked, pointing,  _ actually pointing,  _ towards the bar. Asami despaired.

“Is it really any of our business?” Huan asked desperately, but when their brothers jostled them the reluctant sculptor turned and squinted towards the bar just like the rest of them. After a moment, they shrugged. “I can’t say.”

“You all. Are. Hopeless,” Wu slurred, then with all the confidence of an intoxicated twink, sashayed towards Professor Kya and the mystery woman.

“What the hell is he  _ doing,” _ Asami hissed indignantly as Mako tried to scramble after him but was blocked by the crowd.

All seven of them watched helplessly as Wu went up to Professor Kya, tapped her on the shoulder, and started talking with her. Wu was a politics and economics major, so she didn’t know him from Adam, but she smiled politely at him as he introduced himself. Then after a moment, she looked up and followed his gaze to the crowd of assorted architecture students, partners, and friends crowded around Asami and Korra’s high top.

Professor Kya’s smile grew wider, her eyes crinkling in delight, and she tapped her companion on the shoulder. Asami knew as soon the woman shifted and put her hand on her hip  _ exactly  _ who the leatherdyke was, but it was still a surprise when she turned to glance their way and Asami saw the trademark scars slashing across her cheek.

Professor Beifong looked as horrified as Asami felt to see the lot of them standing there in a cluster.

Korra immediately sunk down into her chair as if to hide. Asami exchanged dismayed glances with Mako as Professor Beifong quickly turned around and pulled the brim of her office cap lower over her face, as if that would hide their presence from her.

“Tell your boyfriend I hate him,” Korra mumbled across the table.

“Tell him yourself.”

Wing, Wei, and Huan were looking equal parts delighted and disturbed.

“You think Mom knows?” Wing asked Wei from where they were still bracketing a distraught looking Bolin.

“Bet you she doesn’t,” Wei countered gleefully.

“You  _ cannot _ tell her,” Huan hissed. “It would disrupt the sacred trust Aunt Lin has shared with us in this moment.”

Asami didn’t know about  _ sacred trust,  _ but from what Asami did know of Wing, Wei, and Huan’s mother, Suyin Beifong would either flip her lid or be absolutely thrilled if she found out her older sister was a leatherdyke. Either one would be entertaining, which meant she was certain Wing and Wei would tell their mother right before class on Monday just to see what would happen.

Korra slumped over the table and covered her head with her hands. “I suddenly don’t wanna be here anymore.”

“You’re not the only one,” Asami noted, and nodded to where Beifong and Kya were throwing cash down on the bar and heading out.

Huan wrinkled their nose and departed the group with an air of indifference, back into the crowd to be with their art school friends. Wei’s shit-eating grin was still firmly in place despite the departure of his sibling.

“This is the best new family drama since Mom and Aunt Lin got into that huge fight over bamboo as interior decorations for the solstice.”

“I gotta go buy your boyfriend a drink,” Wing told Mako. “He’s my hero.”

Wing and Wei departed for the bar where Wu was still leaning, looking pleased with himself. Bolin pulled up a stool beside where his brother was slumped over the table, mirroring Korra.

“How the  _ fuck _ am I supposed to look her in the face tomorrow?” Mako moaned. “I’ve got an hour long one-on-one to discuss my thesis.”

Asami reached over and patted him on the hand in what she hoped was a comforting manner. “Maybe she’ll go easy on our exams next week?”

“Beifong?” Bolin asked, stealing the tiny umbrella out of Asami’s drink and twirling it around in his thick fingers before sticking it behind his ear. “Not a chance.”

Asami watched as Professor Beifong and Professor Kya slipped out into the threshold of the club. A few minutes later, despite the pounding of the music, Asami heard the roar of an engine and looked towards the front door just in time to see Professor Kya zip by on the back of a motorcycle.

She blinked.

“Does…does Professor Beifong have a motorcycle?”

Mako and Korra looked up, aghast. All four students exchanged glances, then decided that some questions were better left unanswered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked what you read, please consider leaving a review. :)
> 
> P.S. Leatherdyke is the proper term, not a slur. Love, a lesbian historian


	4. Kyalin Week 2020 Day 1: Tired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyalin Week 2020 Day 3: tired
> 
> Zombies! Run x Legend of Korra crossover 
> 
> [You don't really need to know anything about Zombies! Run or it's story line to read this one.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably THE most obscure reference ever but YOLO, or whatever it is the kids say these days.

#  Day 3: tired

The alarm blares suddenly in their small barracks room, startling them both into consciousness as the intercom crackles to life. 

_ “Doctor Kya to the hospital, Doctor Kya to the hospital,”  _ comes Bolin’s voice from somewhere above them.  _ “All runners, report to the gate. Repeat, all runners, report to the gate.” _

“Fuck,” Kya groans besides her wife, but despite her protests she’s already sliding out of bed and fishing around for the pair of scrub pants Runner Six had brought back two months ago. “What time is it?”

Lin squints in exhaustion but checks her battered sports watch. The light had been broken when it had been picked up, but the battery and display still work otherwise. She can just make out the time in the darkness.

“Just gone four.”

“Ugh, fuck.”

Lin jumps out of bed and grabs her radio off the crate they’ve been using as a side table. “Bolin, report. What’s going on?”

Kya hurries to pull her hair into something sloppily resembling a bun as Bolin responds,  _ “We’ve got a bunch of zoms incoming, and our late night supply mission didn’t go as planned. Runner Four is pretty sure she’s broken something in her arm.” _

Lin swears. “I’ll be there in a second.”

“I’m on my way,” Kya calls before she can release the key.

_ “Thank you,” _ Bolin chirps, then the radio goes quiet.

Kya tosses her wife her pants, and she jumps into them and quickly snaps the belt together and zips them up. The plastic clip is almost shot. She’s going to need a new pair soon; she hopes one of the runners can pick something up before winter. 

“Okay, gotta go,” Kya says, stopping to give her a kiss on her way out the door. “I love you.”

She’s disheveled, they both are, and Kya is still in her sleep shirt, but Lin wraps her arm firmly around her waist and kisses her anyway. She never knows when their next kiss will be their last, so she makes sure each one counts.

When they part, Lin says, “I’ll bring coffee.”

If they even have coffee.

“Zoms first,” Kya tells her sternly, patting her firmly on the chest before pulling away.

She leaves at a trot for the hospital and Lin hurries to pull on her boots. At the sound of gunfire from the Tower, she grabs her pistol and hurries for the gate. 


	5. Kyalin Week 2020 Day 5: bending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyalin Week 2020 Day 5: bending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those chapters where I sort of deviated from the prompt in a way that doesn't make sense unless you were in my brain. But I swear there's a process!
> 
> me, working for archeologists for a month --> my brain thinking about this prompt as we dug --> my brain thinking --> realizing that earthbendings would make great archeologists --> realizing that waterbenders would made great archeology lab directors

#  Day 5: bending

The archeologists always come back from the field covered in mud.

Kya supposes it is understandable for Mako, who isn’t an earthbender, but Kuvira, Bolin, and the Beifong twins have no excuse. The boys always come in boisterous and loud, hauling their screens and their shovels and wheelbarrows, tracking mud across the carpet. It’s usually Lin who comes out of her office, or follows behind them in from the truck, lugging buckets of artifacts and bending their muddy boot prints out with the look of a long-suffering prisoner. 

It’s that expression she’s wearing as Kya watches the boys disappear into the basement and Kuvira goes off to report in to Su. Lin checks the door to the lab with her hip and sets the bucket full of artifact bags down on the floor by the sink.

Kya spins her chair to face her and offers up a smile. “What have you got for me?”

“STP135 through 204, transects Q and R,” Lin says matter-of-factly, dropping her bag on the counter and pulling out a clipboard full of paperwork. She passes it over to Kya who looks through the sheets with interest.

“Anything good?”

“Couple of scrapers, few burnishing items, a pipe stem or two. It’s probably the Nomad camp we read about in the oral histories.”

Kya nods, then rolls over and takes a look through the paper bags. “How far below delta?”

“About forty centimeters. Completely within the A horizon.”

“Very nice.”

Lin leans back on the counter as Kya pokes through the contents of one of the artifact bags. She holds something up to the light, nods, then puts it back.

“Opal’s gone for the weekend, but we’ll start washing these right away.”

The archeologist nods. “I believe there’s twenty hours budgeted for the washing, sorting, and cataloguing.”

“More than enough.” Kya puts the bags up, then leans back in her chair and smiles up at her. “Tenzin and Korra are out surveying in Ba Sing Se, so it’s been a bit quiet around here. Su’s been going spare.”

Lin huffs out a sigh and crosses her arms over her chest. “Has she tried to talk you into yoga yet?”

Kya gives her a look that indicates she never needs to be  _ talked into yoga _ , what with her current attire of tie-dyed yoga pants and a bright blue boho headband, and rolls back over to her computer. “I’ll have you know the studio she invited me to is very nice.”

Lin actually groans.

“What?”

“Don’t encourage her. I had just talked her out of yoga sessions before and after set up and tear down. Now she’ll be back on it.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Kya says as she pulls up her email and refreshes to make sure she hasn’t missed anything since Lin and the boys came in. “It would be good for your muscles, make sure you and the techs don’t strain anything.”

Lin actually rolls her eyes. She pushes off the counter and unceremoniously grabs her backpack off the counter. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to return the trimble.”

“You in the office Monday?” She nods in the affirmative, and Kya smiles. “Okay, see you then.”

Lin nods, slings her backpack over her shoulder, then leaves the lab to find Mako and get the theodolite.

“Have a good weekend!” Kya calls out after her, and her heart swells when Lin fans a hand to the side in a half-hearted wave goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like what you read, please consider leaving a comment :)


	6. Kyalin Week 2020 Day 6: modern AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NASA AU? NASA AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody asked for a Kyalin Space Shuttle AU, but here you go! I made a whole post about my extended headcanon for this universe on my tumblr, check it out!

#  Day 6: modern au

_ “CAPCOM to Shuttle.” _

Kya paused in her work at the sound of Lin’s voice coming through the speakers of the flight deck. With Tenzin, Mako, and Asami asleep on the middeck, and Bumi and Korra finishing up experiments in Spacelab, it was up to her to answer the radio. She floated over to the pilot’s seat and put on the headset, then keyed up the microphone.

“CAPCOM, this is Shuttle.”

_ “Good afternoon, Shuttle,” _ came Lin’s businesslike response.  _ “It is 16:30 RCMT. Are we on schedule?” _

Kya hid a smile at the sound of her voice, then grabbed a nearby checklist and checked against the schedule in question. “We are. Closing out on paperwork for the second round of echocardiograms for the ground, and Bumi and Korra are finishing up their tasks with the pentapusses. Red team should be up momentarily for shift change.”

_ “Roger. I’m asked to remind you the crew’s scheduled meal is in a quarter of an hour.” _

Kya rolled her eyes. “Roger, CAPCOM. Wilco.”

“Thank you, Shuttle.”

She hesitated, not wanting to stop talking with Lin just yet. “Can you tell the SFS that the Water Tribe contingent enjoyed the stewed sea prunes last night? Tastes just like Mom made.”

She could almost hear the humor in Lin’s voice as she responded.  _ “And the non-Water Tribe contingent?” _

“They had the fire cakes.”

Lin snorted softly on the other end of the line, a burst of static that made Kya’s heart catch in her chest.  _ “It is noted. We will pass your compliments on to the SFS team.” _

“Thank you, CAPCOM,” she said quietly, then more businesslike, “Commander Tenzin will catch you on the next pass.”

_ “10-4.” _

“And Lin?”

A pause. _ “Yes?” _

“Love you.”

She heard a chorus of soft titters from the Mission Control end of the line and knew Lin was probably bright red, but she didn’t care. She was two hundred and fifty miles above the earth, hurtling through the very edge of the atmosphere at seventeen thousand five hundred miles per hour, with only the radio to connect her to her beloved.

And spirits, did she miss her.

Her partner cleared her throat, awkward to the last.  _ “I love you, too. We will await Commander Tenzin’s check in.” _

A pause, and when there were no further messages, Kya took off the headset. Seconds later she heard the wake up music for Red team pumping through the speakers on the middeck. She sighed, and with one final look at the ground through the windshield, she floated back to her notepad and computer to finish up her paperwork; as much as she missed Lin, it was time to get back to work.


End file.
